Roma-minority treatment in Slovakia during pandemic

In some European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, Roma people faced not only the negative effects of the pandemic but also disproportionate enforcement of the measures taken to contain the coronavirus. Slovakia deployed heavily securitised responses toward Roma, resulting in the militarised quarantine of six Roma settlements during the first wave of the pandemic. Throughout the second wave, Slovakia resorted again to quarantining whole buildings, streets or settlements where Roma lived and ordered the police and/or armed forces to control these measures. In this lecture, Dr Surova presented her study which analyzes the acts of Regional Offices of Public Health specifically targeting Marginalised Roma Communities and their residents from a rights-based perspective by applying qualitative research design.